Here let me confess it: I was that little girl, and the silken-clad prince was my first ideal! I dreamed of him by night and talked to him by day, and played with his imaginary image that I saw at dusk in the firelight. And when I was hurt or offended, I would sit in a dark corner with tears trickling down the sides of my very small nose and think of the time when I would ride away with him on his prancing charger, much to the discomfort of my unromantic family. But one day I awoke to the fact that I had grown tired of him; that the idea of a princess's life on a shining throne seemed rather dull. And though I cried and worried over him, he never came back again with just the same charm. For he had served his purpose and lasted quite a few years.

Then, one summer, a new vision dawned upon my small and rather empty horizon. He was dark and slender like the prince. But, oh, with a difference, and he was alive! I will never forget that first day that I saw him. I was standing on the porch in a stiffly starched white dress, and my hair was tied back in two knots (so tight that my eyebrows must have had a slightly Oriental look), and caught up with enormous blue bows. The new "ideal" came up the path between two rows of stubby trees and my eyes grew round with excitement. But he only glanced non-chalantly in my direction and said in a drawling, obviously affected tone: "Hello, kid!"

I grew scarlet up to my tight hair and thrust my finger into my mouth, and ran to my mother; for I was only ten.

I cannot remember ever speaking to him; but I sat and looked at him whenever he was busy, though he never noticed me except to pull my hair, and make me blush. And when he went away I was lonely and missed his step on the stair, and his drawling voice in the halls, and his teasing. Several years ago I saw him again, but he seemed, somehow, very different, very dull and sordid. Not that he had changed; but my ideal had grown larger.

When I was about fifteen, I had vague thoughts of wearing long dresses, and putting my hair up. I began to study queer subjects and go to football games. Stories by writers with marvelous imagination took the place of my fairy books. And with these changes, another ideal became enthroned in my heart. He was not patterned after any particular type; he was a composite of the 'varsity football player with the characteristics of a fashionable clothing-store advertisement added. I seemed to see him--when I shut my eyes--dressed in a uniform, on a highly-polished floor, in a dress suit, clothed in football garments, and also attired in cap and gown with his diploma in his hand; but his face was always the same, and no difference of expression ever showed in his wonderful eyes. However, I liked him, and when he began to fade away from my mind I was truly sorry.

Now, I have a new ideal. I do not know what he looks like or what kind of clothes he wears. (He is neither a prince nor a football hero. But he likes the things I like, he measures up rigidly to the mental yardstick, and he looks straight into your face with clear eyes when he talks to you.) I may never meet him, but he will always be enthroned somewhere in a little unforgetting corner of my mind.

Always have your ideal! Never feel that you could care for a man whom you do not respect. Build up a character that is real to you; a man who measures up at least fairly to your standard in mental, moral, and spiritual things.

There is a little fable that is in a way symbolical. A young Greek sculptor once made a beautiful figure of marble. He carved it and worked over it, and under his hands it grew into a maiden of marvelous beauty. As she grew more charming day by day, he grew to lover her very dearly, cold stone though she was.

At last the statue was finished. The sculptor adored; then, despairing, he went to the temple and prayed that the faith in his artistic creation might be justified. Sadly, disconsolately, he turned to his lonely studio. But as he glanced in at the door he saw a wonderful sight. A red beam from the setting sun fell across the face of the statue, making it look very beautiful, like the face of a young girl gloriously alive. Hoping, yet fearing, he stepped into the room and touched the hand, and lo! it was soft and warm to the touch, and the lips smiled down at him as the figure stepped from the pedestal.

Though merely a fable, it teaches us a lesson: Carve your ideal in good material; put the best work of the heart and mind and soul into it, and some day your labor will be rewarded and you will discover that you have builded well; that you worked in marble and not in common clay.

The above short story is reprinted from Friends O' Mine: A Book of Poems and Stories. Margaret E. Sangster. New York: The Christian Herald, 1914.